In this article, Eric Spiegel recounts his experience of moving from his position as a software developer to becoming a project manager. One big first challenge was dealing with more experienced former colleagues who had been passed over for the promotion. Speigel concludes, “What I have learned over the years is that leadership has little to do with technical expertise. More important leadership traits are fairness, integrity, honesty, trustworthiness, competence and an ability to communicate with your team, management, customers and sometimes the rest of the outside world.”
He adds, “Not every developer is cut out to be a leader. And some developers are much better suited to be a leader instead of writing code.”